


Dreams Of The Spider

by Nevanna



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Age Difference, Dreams and Nightmares, Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, M/M, Manipulation, Power Imbalance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 10:09:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15410625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: Five times that Alex dreamed of Roger, plus one improbable reality.





	Dreams Of The Spider

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks (yet again) to Elle for her help and encouragement, and thanks (also yet again) to the October Project for providing a suitable fic title in "Paths of Desire."

**1.**

Alex doesn’t realize, until he’s tossed aside his practice sword, that he and Jonathan have an audience. Duke Roger stands at the edge of the practice court, with his arms – in their elaborately embroidered sleeves – folded across his chest. “Excellent work, both of you,” he calls. “Jon, you’ve come a long way from the little boy who used to swing a stick about in the courtyard.”

Jonathan gives Alex a good-natured nudge with his elbow. “I might as well be that, compared to him.”

Roger turns his brilliant smile on Alex, who is suddenly aware of his own disheveled hair and sweat-stained clothes. “Our prince’s tales of your skill haven’t done you justice,” he says. “He’s very lucky that you’re his friend, isn’t he? From an enemy, that last move would have been fatal.”

Alex inclines his head. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

Roger takes Alex’s chin in his strong fingers and tips it up until their eyes meet. “The pleasure was all mine.”

Once he’s left them alone, Jonathan asks, “Do you know what that was about?”

“Why would I? You know him better than I do.” All the same, the memory of Roger’s touch, of the spicy scent that clung to his clothes and skin, follow Alex through the rest of the day’s training and linger in his mind even after he closes his eyes that night. In his dreams, those fingers slide along his neck and shoulders, and lower still, while Roger presses close to him and whispers in his ear…

When Alex opens his eyes, his thighs and belly and the sheets around him are wet with the evidence of his pleasure, and shame clouds the memory of those whispered words.

**2.**

The ropes around Alex’s ankles and wrists do not surprise him. His surroundings are shadowed and wrapped in mist, but his position, and the approaching footsteps, are as exciting as they are familiar.

As the footfalls grow louder, the anticipation sours into panic. Some unspeakable monster has been stalking him, and is on its way to slowly devour him. The more he struggles, the more his bonds tighten and stick to his skin. When they finally snap, he falls through an endless fog…

…to wake in an undignified heap on the floor of Roger’s bedchamber.

His heart still thudding, Alex slips beneath the sheets as carefully as he can manage. “Is something wrong?” Roger asks, his voice low and fogged with sleep, but as irresistible as ever.

“It was just a dream,” Alex mutters, half to himself. When Roger reaches for him, he surrenders to his master’s caresses and tries not to think of spider-webs.

**3.**

Alex has never spoken of what he saw, what he felt, during his Ordeal of Knighthood: the failures and punishments and pain, the injuries that would keep him from ever holding a weapon again, the crumbling of the future that he’s been promised in exchange for his service.

Some of those visions find their way into his dreams, afterward, but he keeps them secret even from the man who knows him best in this world. Certainly, Roger has no way of knowing that, in some of those dreams, he holds the sword that removes Alex’s hands or the hammer that smashes his fingers.

When he feels Roger grip his hands a little bit too tightly, Alex wonders how much he might have revealed without saying a word.

**4.**

_Show the Prince’s squire who is truly the_ best _fighter._

His violet eyes wide with terror, Alan barely dodges a blow from Alex’s practice sword. Alex tries to back away, to shout a warning, but his body moves against his will, following his master’s orders, and bears down on his opponent without mercy. 

_You musn’t hesitate, Alex._

Orange light flickers at the corners of his vision, and he swings his sword again. Skin and bone split under the fatal strike, and the life fades from Alan’s eyes.

_Good lad. Excellent work, as always._

Sitting bolt upright in bed, Alex reminds himself that Alan is alive and recovering from his broken bone, but nobody understands how their friendly duel could have gone so violently wrong. 

(Later that day, Roger pointed out, “Your fellow knights – especially Jonathan – have always been protective of young Trebond.”

“They think that I injured him on purpose,” Alex said. “I know they do.”

“Well, did you?” Roger asked calmly.

Alex had no answer for that. He still has none.)

When he’s alone with his thoughts, without physical activity (of one sort or another) to distract him, he has to admit that his ties with Jonathan, Alan, and the others have been fraying for a long time. Only lately has Alex become grateful for that distance. He’s starting to accept that they no longer trust him, and, in the darkness and silence of his solitary nights, he starts to think that perhaps they shouldn’t.

**5.**

“Where are we?” Alex only knows that he is a world apart from Court rumors and intrigues: far from Delia and Thom, and the royal family’s march toward their fates, and the unspoken questions about his own loyalties, including a few that he can’t even answer himself.

“The catacombs beneath the palace,” Roger says, his hands closing around Alex’s shoulders from behind. “This is where I rest, for now.”

“Didn’t you tell me once that even the greatest sorcerers can’t return from the dead?”

“Which shows how little you truly know of magic. Oh, don’t make that face,” Roger adds. “And don’t start doubting me now, after all this time. We will see each other again in the world of the living.” He kisses the curve of Alex’s neck, and instead of feeling like he’s wearing a disguise that could come apart at any moment, Alex is at peace within his own skin, if only for a little while. “And those who have been loyal to me, magically Gifted or not, will all have their parts to play.”

**6.**

Roger pulls his mouth away, just long enough to ask, “Well? Did you trust that I would return?”

Alex tried not to doubt, but nor did he want to believe that there was any substance to his dreams. So many of them have begun just like this: with fevered gasps and tangled limbs and the warm perfection of Roger’s skin, as if death had never separated them at all, as if the past year had been the nightmare. “It matters more that you’re here now,” he manages to reply, though his mind is threatening to come apart completely. “And I’m yours.” 

“Of course you are,” Roger agrees. He kisses Alex again, spreads him open to thrust inside. As they join, the world seems to right itself. Roger will tell him what to do, and everything will work out as they’ve planned. “You always have been.”


End file.
